Gathering’s renewal offers opportunity for change

by Linda Post Bushkofsky

I’m writing today to the 3,322 women who gathered in Minneapolis 12 days ago. Those of you who participated from afar, by following social media and reading news releases, I’m talking to you, too. From social media posts and emails received, you’ve described the gathering as “transformational” and “energizing,” “an opportunity for “spiritual renewal.”

So when Monday, July 17th rolled around, and you were at work or shuttling kids back and forth or doing the laundry, was anything different because you had been at the gathering? Because you had heard the speakers, walked the labyrinth, worshiped together, dug into workshops, applied your gifts in servant events?

Were you seeing the world with new eyes? Offering up altered prayers? Sensing the needs of neighbors in a different way? Even recognizing that your definition of “neighbors” had changed?

Remember the words that we heard

We are daughters of a troublemaker, Kelly Fryer told us. We are called to follow Jesus’ example of standing with those on the margins, even at great risk to one’s own personal comfort or reputation. Doing that, Fryer reminded us, is to stand side by side with Jesus.

Anew is not an event, Leymah Gbowee informed us. It is a process. And Jesus renews us all daily to do his work. It is in working together, not in a silo, that we will bring change to a world plagued by racism, violence and greed.

While we Lutheran Christian women are good at mercy, we must move into justice work, Alexia Salvatierra implored. We are called to treat each other as family, exercising both compassion and justice.

Being a Christian is not easy or comfortable. If you are comfortable in Jesus, Angela Khabeb warned us, you are doing it wrong. God of the universe blesses everyone.

My continuing prayer for us, both individually and collectively as the organization known as Women of the ELCA, is that we latch onto this “all anew” momentum and work to bring about the change that is so sorely needed in our church, the society and the world.

I’m ready. Will you join me?

Linda Post Bushkofsky is executive director of Women of the ELCA. Photo by Jim Veneman of Leymah Gbowee linking arms with participants to symbolize linking across color and creed and ethnicity for the humanity of the world.